Police are investigating the cause of a house fire which killed two young brothers, aged seven and five.

Lewis Jenkins and his younger brother, Taylor, died in the blaze on Saturday despite desperate rescue attempts by neighbours. Police said the fire was being treated as a "tragic accident".

Yesterday their mother, Denise Goldsmith, returned to the scene in Eastbourne, East Sussex, to lay flowers. She was escorted away by police after she tried to enter the burnt-out house, and was later treated for minor injuries.

Neighbours told how the fire took hold at 3pm on Saturday. Jason Maynard, 35, said: "I heard screaming and the sound of breaking glass. The mother was already outside and was screaming for someone to go in and get her kids.

"We could see the kitchen going up [in flames] but we couldn't get in, there were flames everywhere."

He said he and his brother had gone to the back of the house, but the door was blocked, and they could not get through the front door either. "It must have been one of those doors that just slam shut. We couldn't hear the boys - she thought they were under the stairs. There was nothing we could do," he said.

Chief Inspector Dick Coates of Sussex police said it would take a number of days to establish what had caused the fire but it was not being treated as suspicious.